Does anyone here actually enjoy playing offline mode?

[OutS|der]

Another challenge is to control multiple teams. You'll be competing against yourself so while in the end you'll still have the advantage over the AI, at least you can have some challenge.

[Vegas Vic]

After some trial and error, I've made the game somewhat challenging by prohibiting myself from drafting Rule 5 players, initiating trades or altering trade offers from the AI. Also set trading difficulty to "very hard" and "heavily favor prospects."

[polydamas]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Another challenge is to control multiple teams. You'll be competing against yourself so while in the end you'll still have the advantage over the AI, at least you can have some challenge.

I do a form of this. At the start of every offseason, I go through teams I consider contenders using commish mode (act as> function) and make sure they aren't doing anything dumb (with arbitration or letting key players walk). During the Winter Meet and Season, I try to make trades to improve teams I think can compete.





This has greatly improved the difficulty for me since I started doing it and really invested me more into my universe.


I really like having multiple lineups I enjoy watching.

In my last playoffs, the Oakland Gladiators (following) lost to Edmonton



Edmonton then took me to 7 games despite having lost ace Whitey Ford in the league championship. Sad to see he has got yet another major arm injury to start this year.



My point is, these teams are ****** stacked and I'm lucky Edmonton beat Oakland, because I was in terror of that Manny/Sisler combo.

It is a lot more fun for me this way.



Edit: I also should mention, Jesus Hueramo is an absolute legend in my game (but is fictional). He is 40 now, but still productive. I attached his stats.

[Calvert98]

My suggestion, in addition to the 20/80 ratings, Very difficult / favor trade AI the OP (Naturaldopamine) is using:

*Yea, start with the 2020 Baltimore Orioles or the 2019 Orioles.

*And stop using the overall ratings / stars: that is a human player handicap. I can see in the screen shots that they are being used.

*Play out all of your games - yea play them all out.

*Generally, do not trade for existing All-Star prospects (real life prospects) until they have been traded to another team; most of the time, they will not be traded, but just in case.

*Play with the Owner's goals turned-on.

-Cal

[jimmysthebestcop]

Originally Posted by Vegas Vic

After some trial and error, I've made the game somewhat challenging by prohibiting myself from drafting Rule 5 players, initiating trades or altering trade offers from the AI. Also set trading difficulty to "very hard" and "heavily favor prospects."

Trading is one of the only fun parts in the game along with the draft and Rule 5. It might make it more challenging but why even bother playing at that point?

I've already had to turn off July IAFA because its pretty universe breaking. Storylines because every time you get a charity story it nerfs your market size by 1 or 2 points. And over so many years it destroys teams. I mean it is completely universe breaking why would a charity reduce market size from a team??????????????????? Still haven't gotten a valid answer.

Had to turn off owner controls budget because it NERFS the AI teams budget so bad it is completely out of control and it might not be a bug/glitch but it certainly isn't a good game mechanic the way it is implemented. Pretty much every team except for 3 or 4 have their budget drastically cut. Even from owners that are suppose to give the teams more money because of their so called personality/traits. And even the big market teams might get 100 million less. That is pretty crazy. There probably should be some limit based upon traits. Some owners give more and some less, then the extremes. But now default MLB opening day its mostly 95% of the owners cut budget in an ungodly amount. Fine for the player but not the AI!!!!!!!!!!

Owner goals.... I am sorry but they are a joke. Half the time they make absolutely no sense. Again it might not be a bug/glitch but the mechanic is so simple and basic its borderline broken when you play each version of OOTPb repeatedly.

I would be fine with a difficulty slider that gives buffs to the AI and debuffs the human. That is what most GAMES do. But using house rules or customization options which are turning features/mechanics off I have problem with. I am already turning too many mechanics off as it is. I don't want to turn more off.

Now even after saying all of the OOTPb difficulty is 100% completely irrelevant. Someone might play it because it's challenging at the start. But the challenge isn't brings people back each year.

Again it's the OOTPb "model building" philosophy. That is what OOTP is about. You build your universe your way. Then extract enjoyment out of it however you see fit.

This is why I've been saying its not a GM game or a management sim game or a grand strategy game. It's nothing like that and most likely will never be anything like that unless it gets swallowed by a huge publisher.

OOTPb builds model baseball universe and display realistic outputs of statistically data. That's what OOTPb is and has always been. I give it credit it does both of those things extremely well.

Now with Perfect Team it is setup for casual "to pay" gamers and your daily fantasy gamblers. That is why the OOTP GO and the mobile market is so important to the company. Those types of games to achieve great success need to be in the mobile world. They can only do so good being on a pc only.

[SShifflett]

Originally Posted by Westheim

As recurring visitors of my Raccoons madhouse will know, i have won just four titles in 60 seasons. I play stupid and emotional, become attached to great players even when they are no help anymore (most recently Cookie Carmona), attached to weird quirky players that are never any help (Jimmy Wallace got a 5-year deal?? oh boy!), and sometimes players that have nothing more to offer than a funny name (Preston Pinkerton!), and which I will drag from year to year regardless. I will show undying loyalty to scrubs from Santa Banana that made it from a $20k bonus in the July IFA period to a .210 clip during a September callup seven years later (Daniel Bullock!). I will go to great lengths to have five players each playing five positions on the roster (again, Pinkerton), and I can't draft a star for the sake of my own arse. I cherish RBI as a stat to measure the value of middle-of-the-order batters. Strikeouts and ERA are fine enough to evaluate pitchers. And I will forego a shrewd and maybe strong move if I can get a bad pun into the weekly report instead (oh, wow, Daniel Bullock...!).

That's the main points, but there's probably more. It is obviously enough for a mediocre run.

I came to this thread off of another more recent question regarding season settings. I love this post more than I have any right to. Awesome!

[r0nster]

I prefer offline and would love playing in real time against live opponent in a league as that's when I would join league tried perfect team not my cup of tea as it were

[One Post Wonder]

I've never played anything but offline, except for a brief foray into an MP league in OOTP5 and some experimenting with PT when it first came out. I have no interest in anything but offline. None whatsoever.

MP annoys me with GMs trying to weasel you with stupid trades all the time. My experience is the top players in MP are the not the most skilled, but the most social. It's not a test of OOTP skill but of time spent and persistence, like a Facebook game.

PT isn't even worth discussion. Its goal is to be something that is lame IMHO and it isn't even good at what it tries to be. Everyone using the same players, and unless they've changed things recently the anti-cheating efforts are pathetic. Honestly if you put money into that game and play it without using some kind of exploit then you are a mark.

For offline, you don't need house rules and you don't need to set trades to Very Hard, which to me makes the AI petulant and stubborn rather than challenging. You just have to think about your setup. You don't want parity. You want the top AI teams to be very strong, and you do this with league setups that reward rich teams and do not penalize teams for finishing with a good record, among other things. My best league a few years ago, I won 120 games and lost a pennant race to an AI team that won 125. That wasn't even a fictional league, mind. With a good setup I can still dominate, but I have to play my best to do it.

Ideas I've run with (among others I don't remember) are:

Play stats only.

If you're running a fictional league, have a lot of teams in it. You need to have a great team to make the playoffs when you've got 2 leagues with 24 teams apiece. Making the playoffs with a modern real setup is very easy and frustrating, since the best team doesn't win in the playoffs most of the time.

Get rid of rule 5 and waiver requirements. All of those iddy-biddy roster rules. The AI doesn't manage them well and they're kind of a pain in the butt anyway.

Get rid of the amateur draft and instead create new players with a massive international free agent draft with scouting discoveries maxed out. This means that rich, successful teams have an edge in acquiring talent.

It takes some creativity. OOTP doesn't have settings which could strengthen the best AI teams, such as serpentine drafts and so on, so you have to play around a bit. But you can find challenge in offline.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

Storylines because every time you get a charity story it nerfs your market size by 1 or 2 points. And over so many years it destroys teams. I mean it is completely universe breaking why would a charity reduce market size from a team???????????????????

Had to turn off owner controls budget because it NERFS the AI teams budget so bad it is completely out of control and it might not be a bug/glitch but it certainly isn't a good game mechanic the way it is implemented.

Owner goals.... I am sorry but they are a joke. Half the time they make absolutely no sense. Again it might not be a bug/glitch but the mechanic is so simple and basic its borderline broken when you play each version of OOTPb repeatedly.

+1 to all these. I turn all these off, along with random league rule changes and expansions. I was done with owner goals a couple of years back, when I got a request to up attendance to 25,000 a game or so and my stadium only held 21,000.

There are a lot of 'features' like this that were added over the years, minor league managing is another one, that weren't well thought out and haven't been worked on. They've just sat there for years and years like some kind of code appendix, not doing anything useful and occasionally screwing things up.

I wonder how many potential new players OOTP has lost over the years with the flaky 'manage a minor league team' option? It's often the first job offer you get. IMO one thing the new ownership could do is streamline the offline game a bit and get rid of all that superfluous junk. I'm not expecting much from them, though.

OOTP is good at what it does, but a challenging offline game is not what it is made to do. Creating a challenging game with good AI teams - that has to be done by the player with a good league setup. There's no obvious way to do that with the basic OOTP settings.

[warneke]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Another challenge is to control multiple teams. You'll be competing against yourself so while in the end you'll still have the advantage over the AI, at least you can have some challenge.

How do you do that?

[warneke]

Something not yet mentioned here to make for a challenge is develop a promotion/regulation universe and start low and try to work your way up through two or three "lower division" leagues to the big time.

I just added a second league (fictional players) to my random-era historical league (which needed "juicing up" after sixty seasons) and I just took control of the first MLB team that got regulated: the aim, to get it out of that darn second division fictional player league asap.

Since this is the first time I have used the P-R concept, there does seem to be some major flaws when it comes to financial, mostly with the promoted teams having zero money to spend on FAs until the season has started.

----

In general, I play OOTP for enjoyment, and to make it more challenging for myself. I usually pay little attention to the mistakes and dumb decisions the AI GMs do, except that I try not to take undue advantage of them. I realize the game ain't perfect and I do have a sense of honor (not gaming the game, I think is the expression).

One reason I have greatly preferred solo play to online play is that in solo I can control the other GMs more. By this, I mean that even in the best online leagues I've been in, there has been a pattern of the better GMs taking advantage of bad GMs and/or GMs new to the league and absolutely fleecing them in trades. And I cant stand that. Makes for a highly unbalanced universe, worse than any solo universe.

As for solo play, I rarely play with modern teams, as I don't enjoy today's game as much as any era before today's (today's roughly being the 21st century). Anyway, playing with any modern era team, and soon you will end up with a fictional league once you've played enough seasons.

increase TCR sounds like a great idea

I didn't know what it was until I read this thread: this is one of several/many things not described adequately in the manual [if you can even find it]. I used to think it changed the talent level of established players in a random way for each season).

I am not sure turning off the draft and having rookies enter as FAs will do much. It seems to me the draft is the lesser of the evils when it comes to AI incompetence.

One way to minimize the effects of the "AI sucks" is to have the AI draft for your team, and/or have it sign FAs for your team.

The way I play is usually to not display any numerical ratings except "other", I mean defense, speed, running, etc. I figure this stuff can be discovered by a real manager/scout after 15 minutes of observing a player. And I use a 1-5 rating for those.
I may try turning even that rating off (to not displayed) because...

One of the biggest weaknesses I find in the game is that the AI doesn't give a flip about defense. I mean just make your team strong up the middle and you will add twenty wins to your season.

I have tried "stats only" before but then I don't see how the draft is at all possible: might as well let the AI do that for me.

Someone suggested accepting every trade offer proposed to you. I don't know if that was a serious suggestion or not; my first impression is that I would hate that because, on hard or very hard, the trade offers are usually crap. I usually don't read them. Plus I get attached to my players or at least my team-building strategy and accepting every offer (almost any offer!) would fuk things up fast.

One really experienced OOTPer said to turn OFF everything like scouting, coaches, et to make the game harder, because by using those options you are just making the already dumb AI even dumber. Any comments?

I have just turned on scouting and set it to low accuracy. We'll see how harder or easier it makes the game. Or how pleasanter or unpleasanter.

Oh--and I usually use a salary cap. Hard to sign every available FA that way.


All in all, to a lover of the game, OOTP is fantastic.

[AaronUK]

offline mode is way better than perfect team g a rbage

[AaronUK]

in fact many fans and even me agree that perfect team is killing this game slowly but i understand the devs need money to keep going BUT PERFECT TEAM IS SO BAD

[AaronUK]

Originally Posted by warneke

Something not yet mentioned here to make for a challenge is develop a promotion/regulation universe and start low and try to work your way up through two or three "lower division" leagues to the big time.

I just added a second league (fictional players) to my random-era historical league (which needed "juicing up" after sixty seasons) and I just took control of the first MLB team that got regulated: the aim, to get it out of that darn second division fictional player league asap.

Since this is the first time I have used the P-R concept, there does seem to be some major flaws when it comes to financial, mostly with the promoted teams having zero money to spend on FAs until the season has started.

----

In general, I play OOTP for enjoyment, and to make it more challenging for myself. I usually pay little attention to the mistakes and dumb decisions the AI GMs do, except that I try not to take undue advantage of them. I realize the game ain't perfect and I do have a sense of honor (not gaming the game, I think is the expression).

One reason I have greatly preferred solo play to online play is that in solo I can control the other GMs more. By this, I mean that even in the best online leagues I've been in, there has been a pattern of the better GMs taking advantage of bad GMs and/or GMs new to the league and absolutely fleecing them in trades. And I cant stand that. Makes for a highly unbalanced universe, worse than any solo universe.

As for solo play, I rarely play with modern teams, as I don't enjoy today's game as much as any era before today's (today's roughly being the 21st century). Anyway, playing with any modern era team, and soon you will end up with a fictional league once you've played enough seasons.

increase TCR sounds like a great idea

I didn't know what it was until I read this thread: this is one of several/many things not described adequately in the manual [if you can even find it]. I used to think it changed the talent level of established players in a random way for each season).

I am not sure turning off the draft and having rookies enter as FAs will do much. It seems to me the draft is the lesser of the evils when it comes to AI incompetence.

One way to minimize the effects of the "AI sucks" is to have the AI draft for your team, and/or have it sign FAs for your team.

The way I play is usually to not display any numerical ratings except "other", I mean defense, speed, running, etc. I figure this stuff can be discovered by a real manager/scout after 15 minutes of observing a player. And I use a 1-5 rating for those.
I may try turning even that rating off (to not displayed) because...

One of the biggest weaknesses I find in the game is that the AI doesn't give a flip about defense. I mean just make your team strong up the middle and you will add twenty wins to your season.

I have tried "stats only" before but then I don't see how the draft is at all possible: might as well let the AI do that for me.

Someone suggested accepting every trade offer proposed to you. I don't know if that was a serious suggestion or not; my first impression is that I would hate that because, on hard or very hard, the trade offers are usually crap. I usually don't read them. Plus I get attached to my players or at least my team-building strategy and accepting every offer (almost any offer!) would fuk things up fast.

One really experienced OOTPer said to turn OFF everything like scouting, coaches, et to make the game harder, because by using those options you are just making the already dumb AI even dumber. Any comments?

I have just turned on scouting and set it to low accuracy. We'll see how harder or easier it makes the game. Or how pleasanter or unpleasanter.

Oh--and I usually use a salary cap. Hard to sign every available FA that way.


All in all, to a lover of the game, OOTP is fantastic.

I ALSO THINK ABOUT DOING THIS BUT I JUST CANT the whole baseball thing doesent suit it and the finances do not adjust but maybe ootpb 23 will fix this also i may add more than 30 teams i may do 60 teams or less or so if they fix finance i will also do promotion ect

[AaronUK]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

Basically what this all comes down to is this game doesnt simulate the role of a GM the way we want it to. This game does a great job of simulating baseball and producing stats and just how baseball works on a macro level, but it needs a lot more work on the micro level... How GMs interact with other GMs, how a front office operates, the relationships between GM and manager or between players, the logic of AI GMs, etc. etc.

This is where I wish OOTP would focus on upcoming iterations of the game.

i absolutly agree o nthis there WASTING TIME ON PERFECT TEAM really hate it me perfect team is cancer sorry to say ootpb is amazing but iwish there was chemistry relaitonships ect like footballmanager .. if this happened it would be the best sports game TO EVER HAVE BEEN MADE it already is amazing im addicted

[AaronUK]

finally yes i prefer offline mode ITS HOW ITS MENT TO BE PLAYED

[AaronUK]

Originally Posted by ALB123

I would love to see changes implemented in the AI trading system. I've learned of a few ways people exploit trading with the AI and I could never, ever do such things. I want to win as much as anyone, but I want to win with some sort of honor. At the same time, I am a firm believer in, "It's your game. Play it the way you enjoy it the most!".

In addition to the trading system, something must be done about the Free Agency system in ootp. On the day new Free Agents are announced, the likelihood of getting anyone you desire in the Top 10 is probably 97% if you have the money to woo the player. And if you don't have the money, you can spend as much time as you'd like, IRL, proposing trades to free up some extra cash to grab the #1, #2 or whomever you desire as new Free Agents who will help your team a lot.

I did have a thought that when Free Agency begins and you select a new Free Agent you're interested in, perhaps we should not be told what the player is looking for in terms of $$ and duration. We could make an offer if we believe we know what they're looking for and possibly secure that F.A.'s services for the contract we proposed. Or, he'll tell us he will think about the offer and get back to us. Maybe, after 5 or 7 days, the terms and conditions each new F.A. is seeking will become public information. If the player was really happy with our offer, we should win the bidding unless he's high in Greed. Then he may decide to listen to other offers and we will have to make another bid for his services. With each F.A. in the top 25 or 35, we should only have 2 chances per month to win them over. So, maybe we don't want to make an offer in that first 5-7 days when his desires aren't revealed yet, because we'd only have 1 more chance to bid on him if he doesn't accept it right away. Waiting for his expected terms & conditions leaves us with two chances to win him over an AI team. And perhaps, when the player's terms & conditions are made public, the BNN should inform us of some type of range, not an exact dollar amount and # of years. If BNN says, "Derek Jeter is looking for a new deal for between 4-8 years with an average annual value between 2,000,000 - 5,000,000..." You might offer 7 years at $4,750,000/year and obtain his services and then it will be revealed what his exact terms were. Only then do you learn that he was willing to sign for $3,500,000/year over 5 years which means you way overpaid for him. Or maybe he didn't want anything over 4 years and that is why he's refusing that huge $4.75M/year for 7 years offer.

That might be the worst idea ever conceived...I don't know. I just know that if I'm a big market team and I have a generous owner, I can almost always get top quality free agents each season which just widens the gap between our team and the smaller market squads.

dont cheat then i dont i leave trading logic difficulty on normal and thats hard enough for me especially in ootpb 22 trading has gone harder now on normal difficulty ni struggle to get anyone good still without giving up at least an extra player thats how it should be not very hard thats just insane and not realistic

[AaronUK]

Originally Posted by ALB123

I would love to see changes implemented in the AI trading system. I've learned of a few ways people exploit trading with the AI and I could never, ever do such things. I want to win as much as anyone, but I want to win with some sort of honor. At the same time, I am a firm believer in, "It's your game. Play it the way you enjoy it the most!".

In addition to the trading system, something must be done about the Free Agency system in ootp. On the day new Free Agents are announced, the likelihood of getting anyone you desire in the Top 10 is probably 97% if you have the money to woo the player. And if you don't have the money, you can spend as much time as you'd like, IRL, proposing trades to free up some extra cash to grab the #1, #2 or whomever you desire as new Free Agents who will help your team a lot.

I did have a thought that when Free Agency begins and you select a new Free Agent you're interested in, perhaps we should not be told what the player is looking for in terms of $$ and duration. We could make an offer if we believe we know what they're looking for and possibly secure that F.A.'s services for the contract we proposed. Or, he'll tell us he will think about the offer and get back to us. Maybe, after 5 or 7 days, the terms and conditions each new F.A. is seeking will become public information. If the player was really happy with our offer, we should win the bidding unless he's high in Greed. Then he may decide to listen to other offers and we will have to make another bid for his services. With each F.A. in the top 25 or 35, we should only have 2 chances per month to win them over. So, maybe we don't want to make an offer in that first 5-7 days when his desires aren't revealed yet, because we'd only have 1 more chance to bid on him if he doesn't accept it right away. Waiting for his expected terms & conditions leaves us with two chances to win him over an AI team. And perhaps, when the player's terms & conditions are made public, the BNN should inform us of some type of range, not an exact dollar amount and # of years. If BNN says, "Derek Jeter is looking for a new deal for between 4-8 years with an average annual value between 2,000,000 - 5,000,000..." You might offer 7 years at $4,750,000/year and obtain his services and then it will be revealed what his exact terms were. Only then do you learn that he was willing to sign for $3,500,000/year over 5 years which means you way overpaid for him. Or maybe he didn't want anything over 4 years and that is why he's refusing that huge $4.75M/year for 7 years offer.

That might be the worst idea ever conceived...I don't know. I just know that if I'm a big market team and I have a generous owner, I can almost always get top quality free agents each season which just widens the gap between our team and the smaller market squads.

this bis not true ai always snap free agency before me they have fixed this issue slightly

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Offline is the only way to go for me I love it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[EightMilesHigh]

Pretty much exclusively offline solo here. My teams do well, but there still is a reasonable element of challenge. Part of what makes it easier is that Moneyball was a hit and more everyday baseball fans know the value of things like OBP - this was not always the case back in the day, even for GMs. We've got years of research to draw from...

Rule 5 draft has never netted me anyone good - best case scenario is I land a passable bench player or mediocre reliever - occasionally l'll lose someone roughly of that caliber. I tend to lose more than I gain in that draft.

I also have never been able to pry outstanding players by piling five awful players - occasionally some 3 star starters get put on the block which makes them easier to obtain, but they're not top notch. (Usually it's the last year of a contract and a salary dump by the AI, and they can help a playoff contending club.)

I get rid of the low minors and just keep AA and AAA, and let the assistant GM and minor league managers deal with it - that limits some fleecing potential because there are not many high ceiling players with low current values to pull. Also, I keep the owner goals on - sometimes they are helpful in improving the team, other times they are moronic and get in the way. This adds an element of difficulty.

The best I'm able to do as far as fleecing the AI is stocking up on highly rated relievers in the draft. I tend to run my sims in the 90's and 2000's and they're plentiful - even when you had a great record the previous year. They tend to not be drafted early by the AI, but they end up being good bargaining chips. I often trade them away when they're still under team control and have yet to earn the big money - I have netted some good players this way, although is that necessarily fleecing? My philosophy as GM does not value relievers that highly - they tend to be a crapshoot. Those players are valued higher by the the AI, and teams of that era often felt the same way. Remember Eric Gagne? I don't hang on to players like that for too long. I'm also frugal as hell.

I use 20-80 ratings on a 5 point scale, which adds an element of mystery. The scout and the OSA are not always the same, and I've had players with a 70 power rating act like guys with a 50 power rating.